With his faithful acolytes Jeff Ballard on the drums and Larry Grenadier on the double bass, Brad Mehldau intertwines three new compositions with covers of pop (Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson), jazz (Elmo Hope, Sam Rivers) and Great American Songbook (Almost Like Being In Love) classics. Without disrupting this great formation’s values, Seymour Reads The Constitution! once again highlights the strong complicity between the three protagonists always inspired in their improvisations and exchanges. They already peaked with their 2016 release Blues And Ballads, but this 2018 opus is even more intoxicating with the piano maestro displaying an incredible versatility and ringing a thousand colours. We already knew the American virtuoso could play anything. But with Seymour Reads The Constitution!, Mehldau keeps the listener off balance at all times, drops countless references, wanders around the history of piano jazz, and always finds the right note, the perfect chord to create the most endearing, touching and astounding music. In his already extensive discography (though not on par with Keith Jarrett’s, one of his great influences), this album will, when push comes to shove, undeniably occupy a most prominent place… – Max Dembo